Just received this email offering, wanted to pass it along. Not affiliated with the seller in any way.

Offering:

TOLKIEN, J.R.R.

THE SILMARILLION. Edited by Christopher Tolkien. Special Deluxe Presentation issue bound in Full Blue Leather with the Emblem of Lúthien Tinúviel in gilt on front panel.

London; George Allen & Unwin. [1977].

First Edition, First Printing, Deluxe issue. Octavo, original publisher's full pebbled blue leather, gilt titles on spine, large gilt emblem - the device of Lúthien Tinúviel - on front panel. 365 pp, folding map at rear. The correct first printing - the export issue, printed by Clowes, which precedes the domestic issue that was printed by offset lithography from this issue. With a special label affixed to the title page which states "This presentation copy of THE SILMARILLION by J.R.R. Tolkien is one of a limited edition specially bound for Methuen Publications, Canada." Copies of this issue were bound up specially for Methuen Canada - the Canadian distributor - and were offered in a special lottery available for persons who pre-ordered the book before publication in September, 1977. These special copies were only distributed in Canada, one copy being allotted to each bookshop in the country who were handling the sale of the book. While there is no exact determination of the amount of copies so bound, it would have been decidedly small. We have had a few copies of this book over the years - the first one, damaged with a hole in the spine, scouted out of a used bookshop for $10 in the mid-1980's; then later Vancouver Bookseller William Hoffer had a handful of copies which he had purchased directly from the Methuen rep - they were undistributed extra copies. We ended up buying them all, and selling them through our catalogues - but this was over 20 years ago, and we've not seen one since, until this one showed up last week. There is a tiny bit of rubbing to the gilt on the spine panel, notably the "L & K" of TOLKIEN; the top edge should be stained blue, it has faded, and there is a small (one-inch wide) dampstain on the top page edges near the headbands - but there is no bleeding of the stain through onto the textblock, and it's not any sort of horrible defect. Overall, a very good clean copy, certainly internally fine, of one of the rarest issues of Tolkien's life-work.